After the wonderful and emotionally fortified doom/death metal debut album "Serenades", Daren White, singer of Anathema, leaves the band not the peaceful way. This is the moment when one of the two guitarists of Anathema, Vincent Cavanagh, will replace Wight on the microphone. The vocals of Vincent are, in my opinion, more intense than Wight's and they pace wonderfully with the lyrics and the music of "The Silent Enigma".

The band continues in doom/death soundscapes, less death than "Serenades" but still doom for sure. Painful guitar melodies, imposing rhythm section, keyboard pieces that sound here and there making the whole atmosphere more intense escalating the compositions at times and a trembling utterly expressive voice that at times seems to weep, cry or even leave its final breath consist of a voyage into oblivion and despair, shattered dreams and bitter memories, "The Silent Enigma".

The voyage into an ocean of sadness begins with "Restless Oblivion" as the melancholic acoustic guitar chords turn to mourning slow guitar riffing weeping with the sirens. The bleeding guitars accompany Vincent's trembling at times whilst at others filled with anger and despair screaming voice expressing in an utterly descriptive way lyrics full of pain and desire to escape. And you continue losing yourselves in a "Shroud Of Frost". The bleeding guitar melodies keep on overrunning you as Vincent's interpretation leaves scars deep in your soul with his tormented voice. The singing part follows a reciting part by Deryk Fullwood adding another poetic sense to the song as the guitar melodies accompany his "cold" reciting voice.

"…Alone" continues the bleak journey as acoustic guitars and intense melancholic keyboard melodies accompany the sweet ethereal female voice of Rebecca Wilson. The title of the song, "…Alone", says it all and the only feelings that this composition evokes are filled with a bitter taste of pure and dying solitude embracing you slowly, dancing with you a macabre dance. "The Sunset Of The Age" finally arrives and everything is blackened; mourning guitar riffing and a rhythm section that literary kills accompany Vincent's distorted voice evoking visions of a"sullen laughter in unventured paradise". "Nocturnal emission" follows, a spoken word composition with keyboard melodies and guitar chords accompanying the reciting parts.

And the voyage goes on with "Cerulean Twilight", another bleak composition exuding pain. The variety of the vocals turning from whispers to screams and from trembling recites to silence pace with the intense atmosphere of the song and the bleeding lyrics. The moment slowly arrives to cherish "The Silent Enigma". The lamenting vocals of Vincent easily pierce your soul as the guitars keep on bleeding and as the vocals turn to desperate screams the whole atmosphere becomes more intense and you remain there, waiting for a "utopia still unborn" as "tormented walls of a fallen Eden" caress your face freezing your bloody tears. As moments pass by the time you'll fade away slowly approaches, make one final wish, a "Dying Wish". The emotional mourning riffing caresses your soul that bleeds with every word that Vincent utters, singing, reciting or screaming. And the light starts to fade away and everything surrounding you turns to black, a "Black Orchid" to lose yourself in as angelic painful melodies that slowly turn to nightmares caress your soul in secret entwine.

"The Silent Enigma" is a release of emotional beauty, intense bleak feelings and painful atmosphere that every metal fan should own.

At first I thought I was gonna hate this album as much I hated ''Serenades''. But it slowly grows on me, and I pass to enjoy it a little. ''Restless Oblivion'' and ''The Silent Enigma'' best songs imo.

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----member of the true crusade against old school heavy metal, early 80s thrash, NWOBHM, traditional doom, first and second wave black metal, old school death metal, US power metal, 70s prog rock and atmospheric doomsludgestoner. o/